Badlands, Minutemen and Wall Drug

We had a full day on Saturday, putting 175 miles on the Fit. We started out from our campsite before 9:00 and headed toward Rapid City and I-90, which took us east to the Minutemen Missile National Historic Site. This was the thing Steven was most looking forward to after Mt. Rushmore, so we had to make it a priority. We spent about an hour at the Visitor's Center, and the boys even attended a movie called "The Greatest Weapon Ever Used". I slipped out early to attend to Hanna, who was waiting in the car.

This site tells about the nuclear ballistic missile system and its role in the Cold War. Most people didn't even know the missiles existed right along the highway. After we left the main site, we drove into the Badlands National Park.

We made a couple of stops at viewing overlooks and took short hikes to capture some awesome photos and listen to several rattlesnakes in the bushes, and then went on to the Visitor's Center. On the way, we were stopped by two bighorn sheep strolling down the shoulder of the road.

photo by Nathan

The Visitor's Center was not one of the most interesting NPS sites for any of us, and we felt like we had seen enough of what the landscape was going to look like, and we made the decision not to drive any farther through the park, but to turn around and go back to I-90, so Steven could visit two more missile sites. These photos were taken at the missile silo.

Steven is listening to the audio tour on his phone.

photo by Nathan 

On our way back toward Rapid City, we drove through Wall, SD. We had counted over 60 signs along the freeway for Wall Drug and decided to stop and see it. We read the story of the pharmacist and his wife who had started the store back in 1931, and by using signs along the road advertising "Free Ice Water", built their little drug store into a multi-million dollar business that now includes a small village of shops and attractions, but still offers Free Ice Water and a five cent cup of coffee. Plus they are dog friendly! Hanna enjoyed walking around the stores and got lots of attention from everyone. We had lunch and a treat before getting back on the road home.

photo by Nathan

photo by Nathan

As we neared our campground, we pulled into Crazy Horse entrance to see what the cost would be. We decided we might go up there on our final evening in the Black Hills and see the museum and laser show.

Mt. Rushmore!

We've been calling this our Mt. Rushmore RV trip, and we made it to our destination on Friday! It was as awesome as I remembered, and the boys were as impressed as I hoped they would be. 

photo by Steven

We spent time in the Visitor's Center, and watched a movie on the carving of the mountain, then took the trail to the viewing areas and the Sculptor's Studio.

Taken from inside a small crevasse near the trail, you can just see Washington's head.

This 1/12 size scale model was sculpted before work on the mountain began.
You can see the ranger in the foreground as a size comparison.
You will notice the original plan was to carve full busts of the 4 men,
but the sculptor Gutzon Borglum died before it was finished, and his son
Lincoln, wrapped up the project.

Sample Face Masks

We spent about half a day there, then went back to Minnie for lunch before we drove down to Custer State Park. They wanted $20 just to drive through, and we decided we had seen enough bison and deer (the main attraction) without paying to see more. There is also a museum, but instead, we went back to the town of Custer and walked around. There are lots of shops and also a great Visitor's Center run by the Chamber of Commerce. The docent there was extremely friendly and informative, and we picked up several brochures and suggestions from her.

There are model buffalo all up and down Main Street, each painted with a unique design.
This one had Bighorn sheep climbing on it.

Devil's Tower

I'm a little behind on my blog posts. We have been so busy and I've been so tired every evening, I haven't gotten around to it before falling into bed.

The day after our Yellowstone tour was a driving day. We traveled from the State Park just past Cody, WY over a steep pass from Ten Sleep to Buffalo. We crested a 9666' summit just before Minnie (and ME!) gave out. That was quite a haul, but she didn't complain, other than slowing down in several spots to around 35mph. But we still kept up with most of the big semi trucks and even passed a few. However, I will find another route home, because I don't want to put that much strain on the engine and brakes -- and that much gas into the tank - again. I am looking at a northern route that would mostly stick to interstates.

Anyway, that evening, we found a beautiful forest service campground just outside Sundance, WY. There were a couple pull through sites, but the back-in sites were much nicer, so I unhitched the Fit and we slid into a really nice space. The boys are getting quite adept at helping me level, set up and also break camp in the mornings. (I forgot to take a picture of this campground.)

According to the map, we were just 27 miles from Devil's Tower, which was on our list of places to see, so on Thursday morning, we headed that way with plans to circle on around to our RV park near Crazy Horse. It was quite impressive, and we took lots of pictures. We also parked the motor home, left the generator running with the AC (for Hanna) and took the 1.6 mile hike around the entire tower. It was a hot day (in the mid 90s), so we were pretty beat when we got done, but we saw all the angles of the tower, plus a climber up near the top. Unfortunately, he went into a crack before we got our cameras on and didn't come back out before we moved on up the trail.

photo by Steven

photo by Steven

That evening (Thursday), we arrived at our RV park just 1/4 mile from Crazy Horse. After studying glowing reviews online, I was pretty disappointed to find just a grassy bank to pull through, but we have full hookups, showers, laundry and it's filled with other families, so it's a decent place to home base while we journey to other sites in the area.

Yellowstone Tour

We got up at 7:00, ate a quick breakfast of cold cereal, and got on the road before 9:00.  We drove back into Grand Teton NP and turned north toward Yellowstone. We drove all the way up to Fishing Bridge Visitor's Center and parked the Minnie, unhooked the car, and got on the circle road to tour some highlights of this magnificent park. On the way to Fishing Bridge, we saw several bison, deer, a moose, and then a bear cub run across the road in front of us following his mother who was already in the trees on the other side. Of course, all this wildlife comes and goes so quickly as you drive along, that you can't get photos of any of it.

Our first stop was Mud Volcano, where the boys exclaimed about the smell before we were even out of the car. They walked up the hill to see several of the bubbling cauldrons, and discovered a buffalo was lounging by the pool. He was literally just a few feet from the trail rail.Nathan got a quick picture where you can see his head.

Canyon Village Educational Center was our next stop. We learned quite a lot about the volcanic activity under the park acreage, and also many exhibits regarding the bison. They are plentiful in the area we had just driven through.We had been wondering what the difference between bison and buffalo, and one of the exhibits answered our question; the terms are interchangeable.

We drove on to Norris Geyser Basin. The line to get a spot in the parking lot took us about 20 minutes, but we found a space for our tiny car and walked down to see several hot pools, mud pots, and spouts. The boys took a little hike around some of the pools while I stayed nearer the car and Hanna.

Our final stop before heading back toward the motor home was Old Faithful. Again, we found a packed parking lot and drove around for about 15-20 minutes looking for a space. We finally parked near the ranger station, and the boys jumped out and ran toward the Visitor's Center and the geyser while I gave Hanna a quick walk before locking her in the car for a short while. Nathan texted me to hurry, as Old Faithful was ready to blow at any minute. Sure enough, as soon as I walked up and found the boys, it started spouting. It's quite an impressive geyser, and certainly the biggest one we saw all day. As soon as it was done, I headed back to check on Hanna and they boys walked through the Visitor's Center.

Then we hurried back to Fishing Bridge to pick up Minnie and go find a campground for the night. On our way out of the park, we saw three grizzlies foraging about 10 feet from the road. There were at least a dozen cars pulled off and many people taking pictures, so the boys took a few pictures out the window and we drove on. We ended up at a state park for the night with a beautiful view and a shower house. What more could you want on your third night out?

Note: Steven brought a DSLR camera and took some great photos, too. We uploaded them to my laptop. Here are a couple shots:

Sun Bathing Buffalo

Grizzly Bear 

Mt. Rushmore or Bust!

I picked up a crew on Sunday morning to go adventuring with me.

I've been promising to take my grandsons Nathan (14) and Steven (12) to Mt Rushmore ever since I got my Minnie. I remember my one and only trip to that national park when I was a young teenager. I'll never forget how awe inspiring it was to drive up that road in the park, come around a corner and see those four huge faces carved in the side of the mountain. I'm sure over the years, I've exaggerated the whole thing in my mind's eye, but I'm still looking forward to showing this magnificent wonder to my boys.

We got on the road about 10:30 and drove to Pocatello. We decided to look at a couple of campgrounds just southeast of there, and as luck would have it, we found a beautiful space in the first one.

The boys had a good time building a campfire and roasting hot dogs for dinner, and then marshmallows for S'mores later that evening. I taught them how to patiently wait for the fire to burn down to red hot coals, and spin the marshmallow slowly over those coals until it was toasted golden brown, puffed up, and centerless. Neither had ever done that before (that they could remember) and they both loved them. It became a contest to see who could roast the best marshmallows before they slid off the end of the fork.

Our first night together in the Minnie was cozy, but very doable. The boys went right to bed when I declared it was my bedtime (about 9:30, because I was tired!) and both read for a while. I never heard them turn off the light, but before long, we were all sawing wood.

I woke them up about 7:00 on Monday by making my coffee. (There are no stealth activities in a 27 foot motor home.) They were happy to get up and get dressed when I told them I was making homemade sausage egg McMuffins and juice.

We got on the road toward Grand Teton National Park at exactly 9:00. We arrived at the park entrance at 2:00 and there were signs stating 4 campgrounds had open spaces. By the time we got to Colter Bay an hour later, it was full and the park host said the other campgrounds were filling quickly as well.

So we headed east out of the park to dry camp in the Bridger Teton forest. We lucked out by finding our choice of spaces in Hatchet Campground just a few miles outside GTNP.

The boys are currently attempting to get another fire going tonight, but the wood they found in the camp site was not completely dry, so they have got a real smoker out there. 😁 At least it's keeping the mosquitoes at bay.

Learning Lessons

This is a very long post and I don't blame anyone who skips it. But I want to document all the good and bad experiences of my travels, so here it is in all its vulnerability.

When I left Maple Bench Campground, I had my sights set on a dispersed camping area near Malta, ID called McClendon Springs. From the Google maps satellite view, it looked like a tree filled oasis in the middle of a scrub desert with several dirt roads leading into it.

Following my Allstays app directions, I drove up Hwy 77 and turned on the dirt road toward the Springs. The road seemed pretty primitive, but passable. I had only gone about a mile when I turned a curve, went down a hill and suddenly came upon a rock filled dry creek bed. I knew Minnie could not cross it.

I hopped out and unhitched the Fit, turned around on the narrow road and drove back up the hill. Then I walked back down to Minnie, turned it around (which was not easy in a narrow dirt road) and went back up the hill, where I hitched up and went back to the main road.

I decided to try another road into the Springs, but found it was just as primitive and narrow as the first one. I kept a close eye ahead, but came upon a dip in the road that I misjudged, and as I slowly went through it, I heard the scrape of my hitch. I jumped out and discovered I had actually cut the electrical cord from the motor home to the car braking system, but it wasn't broken all the way through. I checked the lights and they were working, so I taped it up with electrical tape, and proceeded on. I made a mental note to try to find a different road out so I wouldn't have to navigate the dip again.

The farther I drove, the more narrow the road got, and by the time I got to the Springs, I realized it was not a good place to camp. It was totally isolated, with a sharp turn into the camping area, and all I could think about was my challenging drive back out. I decided to get back out of there and head to Burley and spend the night in the Walmart parking lot.

I unhitched the car and drove off in search of a different road out, but the farther I went, the worse the road got, until it finally deteriorated into two deep ruts in a stony, grassy desert. I got the car turned around by jockeying back and forth about twenty times and slowly crept back to Minnie. I drove the car back down the same road I had come in on, and when I came to the dip, I got out and marked it with some paper under a rock. Then I went back to Minnie and hitched up the car again.

I slowly made my way back to the dip, got out and unhitched again to slowly drive through the dip separately, then hitched back up. I got back underway, but had only gone about an eighth of a mile when I came upon THE dip. I had mistaken a shallower dip for the problem one!

I got out again and unhitched again, and slowly pulled Minnie forward a little. I got out, got some boards to drive my back wheels onto to try to lift the back end as I went through the worst part of the dip. It was not enough. Pretty soon Minnie was in a bad jam.

My mistake (at least at THIS point) was not removing the towbar completely before attempting the crossing.  I had to dig and dig, jumping in and out of Minnie to move an inch forward, dig some more,  then move an inch back, and so on. I finally got loose enough to take the whole towbar off (which is no easy feat, and is very heavy besides!) Then the hitch finally cleared the road bed and I pulled free!

Of course, then I had to put my towbar back on, rehitch the car and drive the rest of the way back out to the main road. The whole ordeal took me over three hours. I was never so glad to be back on a highway in my life. Major lessons learned about going into an isolated unknown primitive area.  Always get out and take the car ahead to check out the area I am venturing into. Initially, I didn't want to unhitch the car, but I ended up unhitching four times with all my trouble! (On the plus side, I'm now an expert with the towbar!)

I drove the 31 miles to the Burley Walmart only to find several signs all over  saying "No Overnight Parking". I felt nearly defeated. Instead, I drove two blocks to a truck stop and tucked in for the night.

I actually slept pretty well even though there was a different truck beside me in the morning than had been there the night before. I never heard one pull out and another pull in. I was totally exhausted.

The next morning (Thursday) I drove on into Eagle (a suburb of  Boise) where I settled into an RV Park a couple miles from the Holsinger's. The first thing I attended to was getting the damaged electrical cord replaced. I've now been here for a few days preparing for the next phase of the summer trip: Travels with Grandsons. Nathan and Steven are joining me for two weeks as we visit Yellowstone, Mt. Rushmore and Badlands National Park. We hit the road east tomorrow morning.

Maple Bench Campground

I left the dispersed camp site near Bryce about 9:00 a.m. and drove north to Payson, UT where I turned southeast. My destination was Maple Bench Campground, a pretty, little Forest Service campground with 2 bars of AT&T signal. I had stayed there last year on my way home, so I knew right where it was. There were 3 of the 9 campsites already filled, but the nicest spot (which was the one I took last year) was vacant again, so I unhitched and backed in. Hanna and I walked about a mile up the s-t-e-e-e-e-e-p road above the campground until we were both winded, then turned around and made our way back to our camp, where we tucked in for the night.